Consumed

So I suppose an update is well past due.  So here it is: I spend all my time reading and writing these days.  All of it, really, and writing a blog post seems so incredibly foreign right now, inconceivable even.  So hopefully I'll keep it short.

Again, basically, all I do is read, write, and occasionally think.  I work seven days a week, I read probably 6-14 hours a day, and have three classes I am attending.  I truly love it, while at the same time struggle horribly with it daily.

Hmm...  keep it short, as I start writing there are so many things that have happened in the last six months.  If I actually want to engage with them it would take countless posts.  Posts I don't have time for, but maybe should make time for.  A PhD program is tough, real tough.  Not because you are reading all the time, but because you are NEVER done.  There is always something more that you could or should be doing.  More books, more sources, more grant applications, whatever.

Academically, I feel like I am working through some things and finding a bit of a groove, yet socially it has been a true challenge.  A PhD is a very isolating experience, especially in a new place where you are not the average sort.  Couple that with a death in the family, getting hit by a car on my bicycle (again), and some truly horrible soul crushing social scenarios (for another day) and it was a struggle.  Still, I came out of it with two A's and a B+ in classes that didn't really inspire me.  However, that B+ is apparently enough to get me a warning: one more and I could be on academic review.  There are however stories behind that to tell, another post perhaps.  No matter, I am still here, dyslexic football playing white guy, I am still here.  I've gotten help with the dyslexia that has proven a game changer, even if not getting the support I feel I should.  it is the football playing white guy I seem to still need to get soem help with.  But so be it.  I will keep plugging away.  My health has waned at times, but nothing too serious, again, I'm still fighting the good fight.

So there you have it, I've written something, yet said nothing really!! ;)  I'm wholly consumed by my life and work right now.  But so is life.  I have a roof over my head, food on my table, and purpose.  I'll take that.  

My Statement of Purpose

I started my academic career as an undergraduate in sociology. Growing up in a household that always had to make do with a modest income, my studies emphasized economic injustice in American society and issues of race and ethnicity. I was especially influenced by the way that economic sociology brought social and cultural depth to scholarship on economics that tended to focus almost exclusively on “the maximizing, rational individual.” After completing my BA in sociology, I pursued an interdisciplinary MA in Economic and Social History at the University of Manchester, where I gained exposure to theories and methods from economics, social theory, political science, and history. Together with my supervisor, Peter Gatrell, my research centered on the social transitions that accompanied economic and political transformations in post-Soviet societies. My thesis on post-war Czechoslovakia examined how Cold War politics shaped socioeconomic institutions. Specifically, this project examined how multilateral aid efforts had been undermined by geopolitical shifts, creating economic challenges for the local populace and hampering the reconstruction process. The Manchester program helped me to refine an abiding interest in the relationship between crisis and economic transformation.

Once I completed my MA, I found myself living abroad with no visa and few employment options. So, I took a job in an industry that drew on my past research, although ultimately tested my ethical and political boundaries. Based in Prague, the position involved working on security and economic development in Iraq and Afghanistan. In addition to research, writing, and improving my Czech language skills, my job included work on private and institutional financing, planning and proposing economic development strategies in war-torn areas, government contracting, and aid work. It quickly became clear to me though that I was flirting with war profiteering. The political and ethical conflicts with this job created one of the most challenging periods of my life. However, my disillusionment helped to develop my critique of the relationship between militarism and economic and political development. I saw first-hand how neoliberal development priorities penetrated all facets of everyday life in developing regions, limiting individual and collective empowerment as exploitative low wage employment led ordinary people to make distressing choices between feeding or protecting their families. I watched as neoliberal institutions, corporations, and political interests worked to “rebuild” countries and societies upon the “blank slate” created by war and destruction.

Wanting to situate this critique intellectually, I pursued graduate study at Central European University in the Sociology and Social Anthropology department. Whereas my work at Manchester was focused on macro-level socioeconomic analysis, CEU's program was far more anthropological, providing the opportunity to explore local systems and individual agency to a far greater extent. Classes on development, globalization, power, and resistance exposed me to the scholarship of Karl Polanyi, James Ferguson, Giovanni Arrighi, David Harvey, Arjun Appadurai, and Jean and John L. Comaroff, among others. This line of inquiry led me to realize that the theories and methods employed in many types of economic analysis were inadequate to the social problems and historical contexts that comprised the focus of my research. I was inspired by the insights sociological and anthropological approaches could offer the study of economics and politics.

At CEU I broadened my interest in post-conflict societies through sustained attention to the history and development of Sierra Leone. My research highlighted social and economic crises in the context of the patchwork of structural adjustment programs and various genres of civil strife experienced there. My work centered on the theoretical concept of “liberal peace” (or “democratic peace”), which posits that liberal societies—with their focus on the individual, private property, civil liberties, and free markets—are inherently more stable and peaceful. My research suggested that, to the contrary, an idealized notion of individualism often led to more competition. Because competition is inherently antagonistic, it often leads not to peace but more readily to conflict, increasing the probability of outright war. Following my research on Sierra Leone at CEU, I planned, fundraised for, and undertook an investigative/awareness-raising trip to Sierra Leone to learn and to identify opportunities for community-based entrepreneurial and humanitarian work to help people recover from civil war. As part of building local alliances, I worked on increasing cultural awareness, became proficient in Krio, and used my time to set up a community-based organization in the city of Makeni aimed at small-scale projects that could create jobs and provide investment for the local community. This work helped me appreciate the logistical problems of development aid in Sierra Leone, symptomatic of analogous situations elsewhere in the global South.

Back in the United States, that course of inquiry shifted in the beginning of October 2011 when I became active with Occupy Wall Street (OWS) and channeled my intellectual energy into applying this socioeconomic critique here. For years, I had hoped to establish an online People’s Think Tank for research and discourse using democratic and participatory approaches. When the Zuccotti Park occupation began, I used these skills and resources to help create and facilitate the Think Tank Working Group, which expands direct democracy through the collection and dissemination of ideas by directly engaging and empowering individuals. We continue to facilitate informal, open, and documented discussion forums throughout New York City and have expanded the Think Tank to other Occupations, community groups, and now to a weekly radio show here in New York City (wbai.org). Discussions range widely, from health care policy and corporate personhood to race relations in Zuccotti Park and Hurricane Sandy relief efforts. We have yet to realize the full potential of the project and are currently working on the logistics of how ideas generated in Think Tank discussions can be more accessible to the public, as well as part of public Think Tank research projects involving the ideas generated both through this process and those surrounding the greater movement.

My involvement with OWS has led me to a fuller appreciation of the relationship between economic and social change and academic scholarship on societal transition. My participation has only raised more questions for me about the relationship between liberal democracy and neoliberalism. In particular, I’m interested in mechanisms of social control in neoliberal society. For instance, the state's exceedingly violent crackdown on the protests has been largely shaped by military tactics and narratives based on the so-called “legitimate” use of force. These tactics have repeated modern methods of social control: a monopoly on the use of force, control of ideas, social messages, and protests. My experiences within the movement, and especially my interactions with the media, have raised unavoidable questions for me: Was there a systemic attempt to use repressive/oppressive and ideological apparatuses to exclude ideas, and to unfavorably skew public opinion away from the movement? What (if any) collusion was there between public and private actors—especially regarding the media and policing? How did the movement's own structure and message (anarchic, amorphous, and without clearly enunciated direction) affect coverage and public understanding of the movement? And most importantly, what does the Occupy movement and its interaction with state, private, and informational apparatuses mean with regard to “democracy” in neoliberal America and the world?

These are the questions I hope will frame my PhD work. Broadly conceived, the crux of my inquiry looks at a broader contradiction that has regularly surfaced in U.S. society in the face of civil unrest: On the one hand, U.S. national identity is often articulated in terms of rights and freedoms to political assembly and free speech, civil liberties and property rights, economic and social freedoms, and freedom from the use of repressive tactics often seen in “less democratic” regimes. Yet, this ideal has been in direct conflict with an institutionalized response using brute force, censorship, and coercive methods to suppress the Occupy movement. This was on prominent display during the slow transition of public empathy for the Occupy movement to the "law and order" and state/corporate message that many people bought into, even despite its obvious contradiction to the freedom of speech, expression, and fight for economic and social justice—the true democracy—that people are taught and wish to believe America is about. Are media, police, and public perceptions mere outcomes of a greater contradiction? And if so, to what origins? As the aforementioned institutions are largely shaped by state actions and interactions with private and corporate interests, the study's core would look at neoliberalism's dominant position within the shaping of American policies, worldviews, and culture, as well as exploring whether there is a growing part of America that has become so entrenched in “the system” (media, education, law and order, mass culture, etc.) that they can no longer assess and critique “the system” surrounding them.

Having spent the last year on the ground with OWS, sleeping in the park, organizing discussion groups, being actively involved with the media, engaging with Occupy on every level, and feeling the very repression I look to study, I am uniquely positioned with ties to the movement's core to carry out this study ethnographically, historically, and archivally....

Academia

So it is about that time again; where the academic calender is calling my name.  This year of course its especially loud as the job market proves to have no love for me.  Thus it brings me back to my eternal quest to get into and funded at a PhD program.  I thought for sure last year would have bore fruit.  But it didn't.  I cut my academic nose off to spite my occupation.  It seemed like a great idea at the time, stay in the New York area to be closer to Occupy.  But I overestimated my capacity within the power and strength of the advice I was getting from others in the know about my PhD applications.  I was surrounded by people that knew and fabulously supported me.  I felt like I'd get in everywhere!  But admissions department's don't know you like your friends and colleagues do.  I got overconfident I suppose, and applied most;y to the most sought after programs in the country.  It didn't work out as I got in to one place with too little funding and wait-listed at my top choice.  A couple hundred plus applicants for two spots.  I was in the top ten it seems, but I didn't get in.  Most of the advice I got from friends and family at the time was to give up, walk away, and find a new career option.  How many years to you keep trying before you realize they may just not be interested in my application?


So I put my efforts into Occupy and finding work in the non-profit and/or international development sectors.  It hasn't worked thus far.  My resume seems to not get me far in these communities and today's economic climate.  Not to mention that, as always, I find myself yearning for intellectual discourse, to be able to focus, to just sit and learn and analyze and try to come to new alternative ways of doing and contemplating things.  I always come back to it.  My passion will always lie in this type of work. I just need to find the best outlet for it.


So I've been looking into how to go about this in academia again.  What lessons have I learned from the last several application processes?  What can be changed?  What in fact should I be studying?  I've started formulating some prospective concepts in my mind over the last few months, and reached out to some people that I trust and have helped me throughout.  I feel like this past year and the people that I've found myself involved with has really honed some of my thoughts/perspectives, especially in formulating this concept.  A year on the ground as a part of a social movement brings a lot of concrete insights that are tough for those outside of it to replicate.  Combining this ground level Occupy stuff with my previous work has really broadened my context and critique of society.


In my head this summer I have been musing about writing a book about some things that make a lot of sense in terms of a PhD project as well.  I keep thinking about the meaning of the systemic, institutional, and successful suppression of the Occupy movement.  The main question that came into my head when thinking about American democracy and society as a whole was the question: "when do you give up on America?"  If Occupy can so easily be suppressed and marginalized, what hope do we have?  As I've been conceptualizing this thought, it centers around the systemic suppression of this open and democratic movement using the private media, the use of "legitimate" power in the form of the police, FBI, homeland security, etc, and a myriad of other tools to sway public opinion in unfavorable directions regarding the movement and the use of free democratic speech as well.


The point of it to me though is not to make another report on the suppression of another movement, but to focus on what this means for our society as a whole and our interest/ability to bring about change.  The main premise is that while "America" believes itself to be so many great things, it is in fact statistically falling far behind much of the industrialized world, and that the suppression of this movement (one envisioned to exactly address these issues and to do it with basis of free speech, economic and social justice, and a more inclusive society) tells me that the country could be on the brink of being lost to real change.  Is our society so systematically controlled as to stifle the exact cure of our ills?  Have the individual people (I know loaded and generalized statement) have become so entrenched in the system that they can no longer assess and critique the system?  It seems that we as a society are forced into a steadfast maintenance of daily life and survival, and that we perhaps blindly trust media and the state to the point of ignorance.  Hence what seems like an easy and slow transition from empathy towards the Occupy movement, to an eventual siding by many people with the "law and order" and the state/corporate message, as opposed to freedom of speech, expression, and the fight for economic and social justice/true democracy that we are taught America is about.  Basically, what does it mean for American society to have had a movement aiming to care for and give voice to all people be so resoundingly squelched by the establishment, and for this to seemingly be accepted by the general public as ok. 


I think these are very important issues to be addressed, and which stretch well beyond NYC and the US.  Even to the global issues and Africa work that matter so much to me easily play into it.  When contextualized through a global light, there is a systematic repression of justice movements throughout the world using the same tactics and weapons used here in the US and that all fall within the framework of neoliberal systems.  The police, media, state resources, the corporate control and influence over global political and economic systems.  The pictures and tactics from around the world are all the same.  Police forces and intelligence services being used as tools of capitalist and authoritarian regimes, all in the name of local or international order.  Public money being spent for police to guard private property.  These images even bridge the international political science discourse on liberal/democratic peace theory that I've done work on in the past with domestic issues of democratic voice and internal conflict/force. 

Obviously this global framework would be an important part of understanding the broader issues affecting things here on the ground in the US regarding democratic voice and the Occupy movement in an interconnected world.  But for me in these purposes, Occupy and the US would be a specific research focus to investigate the systemic issues inherent within the neo-liberal system, what the past year means about the strength of this system, and what "its" hold on power and social control is.  I wrote something touching a bit on some of these issues in a really short piece for the MetrOccupied newspaper.

That article brought me to some very poignant research questions that I feel should be asked regarding the media. While there was a wealth of coverage in the beginning by countless media outlets, what happened after the park was lost and the media coverage slowly dwindled away?  Was the media coverage suppressed?  Was it just the news cycle and fickle nature of private media?  Why did the mainstream coverage eventually seem to solely show negative clashes with the police rather than the movement's outputs?  And what of the alternative media that still covers the movement to this day?  What differentiates these media outlets?  I made some decent friends in the media over this past year and my conversations with them only raised more concerns and questions I'd love to ask.

There are also an equal number of questions to be raised in terms of the physical suppression of the movement by law enforcement.  This has drawn a great deal of attention in alternative and liberal circles and there are a number of projects on going that point out the inequities and illegalities throughout both this movement and others.  These studies would provide a solid foundation for a more expansive inquiry/analysis into the nature and legality of physical suppression by "legal" actors. 

That line of thought brings me to the crux of my interest:  the contradiction and conflict within America's national identity - based so profoundly on different types of freedoms - that I feel that the Occupy movement has shown.  From political voice, to assembly and free speech, to economic and social freedoms, civil liberties, property rights, and everything else in between, there is a devout contradiction here as despite this American self-image of being exceptionally free, the violent suppression of the Occupy movement (and others before it) shows that the country is in fact as repressive as many other countries from whom we like to differentiate ourselves.  The question then becomes where do these contradictions and conflicts come from.  What can the Occupy movement show us regarding this contradiction?  What is the "individual American's" role in this?  Do people uncritically accept their circumstances?  How does the concept of law and order and the "legitimate" use of force factor in?  To what extent does the media's telling of this tale factor into people's opinions, their social critique, and an American concept of "freedom"?  What does it mean to believe the media's representations?  And what would a critique of this "America" look like if it should exist?

The contradictions of course go well beyond just the media, police, and public perception.  They are shaped by state actions and their interactions with corporate interests and messages.  Do the police merely protect the interests of the corporate state and state-like corporations?  What is the outcome of this physical repression on the general public's sense of freedom and democracy?  And what of the possible "repression" of information by both state and private institutions?  Does it actually exist and if so under what context?

This inquiry also requires much more than just an interrogation of whether "America" has allowed the Occupy movement to by pushed a side, but what role did the Occupy movement itself play in its suppression?  How does Occupy's general choice not to engage with electoral politics play in?  How does the strong influence of anarchist ideology/principles factor in to the movement's appearance from the outside give current and historical constructs/prejudices?  Realistically, the media came out in droves early, and in many ways provided the support and interest in Occupy (and its related issues/messages) that allowed the movement to explode into a global movement.  So how and why did that change and what was Occupies role in that?  There is a lot of work to be done analyzing media content and frequency, and Occupy's role in framing this coverage, just as there is to discussing Occupy's reactions to the policing and suppression of the movement throughout the multiple levels of the US's social and political fabric.


Ultimately, this project takes me personally so far in the right directions.  It is a long way from Sierra Leone yes, but it tugs at the heart of my larger interests and interdisciplinary soul that will resonate further than "capitalist expropriation in Africa" - which is not a new topic to academia.  This project with Occupy, which has grown within me while having been on the ground with OWS for the whole year, puts me in a very advantageous position.  I mean how many applicants could say that they were living in the park, organizing daily, getting pushed by the police, being both propped up and stifled by the media, facilitating large discussion group every day and turning that into research outputs?  Nevermind maintaining an involvement?  How many applicants would have the background I do and would be applying for PhD's in the same places?  I the parlance of my neighborhood, I've got knowledge and street cred here.  And I've earned it.  I want to use that knowledge and leverage to get to the next level and to provide a proper break down and analysis of both what's happening here and its meaning.

Wooo.....  right, but where do I do this study?  I had been applying mostly in Anthropology over the ast couple years; a discipline that is great at accessing individual agency, power, national cultural images, and critiques of the media, but I've done a lot of work in Sociology as well, a discipline that is really strong on Social Movements.  I also already have a masters degree in history and could piggy back off that; assess the movement through the historical suppression of social movements and of social change in general and in American ideals.  There is also the legal aspect to it all.  There are law schools out there tied to interdisciplinary initiatives that could be very interested in this work.  I personally usually think in interdisciplinary terms as it usually bridges my interests well - giving the the best of many worlds.  But it also has its limits in the depth of analysis.  Those programs are also hard to locate.

I think the key for me is going to be to find progressive/critical mentors, academics and programs that are going to work with me, understanding that I am not just an academic, but an activist, a protester, a dyslexic football player... an all-together different sort of fellow.  So how widely do I apply?  And how do I afford the application fees?  If I am going to do it, I need to get it done this year and i need to get the applications done early.  I need all my ducks in a row, to do lots of research, and make some really astute choices to get in to the right schools.  We'll see.  Time to get reading so I can frame the study in the right way, reach out to the right people, and try to make things happen... Oh yeah, and try to figure out where to sleep next week, whether I'll have enough food, and what to do for the next year until a program would start - if I was to get in!  lol.  What I wouldn't give for a job!!  ;)

A Real Occupy Think Tank

So Friday I met with a Think Tanker about moving things to the next level.  We have been thinking for months (really since its inception for me) about creating a true research institution surrounding the work and issues we are focusing on at Occupy.  We met about trying to make this happen.  There are three of us that may really be interested in working on it.  We don't really have plans as much as guidelines.  But it is a good thing to move forward with.  The general concept was free-written as such:

We would structure this research institute under different auspices and governance structures than found in typical institutions.  We would incorporate a horizontal decision making structure into a managerial structure sharing input throughout ll levels of the institute and its research process.  Focusing on horizontal ideals while still working to maximize efficiency and expertise.  The research process would be facilitated by trained intellectuals doing research and working to guide projects on specific areas of interest and expertise.  These individuals would work within their main areas of inquiry or subject matter, but would largely be responsible for managing information and what would mostly be crowd sourced research supplemented/done by the general public.  The teams would be open and charged with briding public participation in reaserch and ideas while working with the scientifically valid research methods.  The idea would create a think tank that was far broader than a few PhD's sitting in stuffy rooms reading books, but for qualified intellectuals to act as  facilitators and discussion/project leaders aiming at producing a research process that includes and brings to the fore the public's voices and ideas both in terms of subjects and as researchers. 

From a methodological perspective, the research process would include at least four areas of data collection:

1. The general public on the ground. Open discussions, town hall style roundtables, community lead research/questions. This would take the form of individuals going out into public/private spaces (in cooperation with local community groups), asking questions, and engaging in public dialog with citizens and local communities.
2. An expansive web presence that would act as an idea/information conduit and repository that would open information and research to the public and researchers.
3. There would still be standard academic styled research and discourse.
4. Survey or phone based sampling to try to include everyday citizens into the dialog. This could be part of number 1.

The key component to this think tank would be a foundation based on open/crowd sourcing of the research, and teams of researchers that could be anyone and everyone from throughout the process.  At every level of society you can have a conversation with people with profound ideas and initiative; from CEO's to carpenters, there is intellect everywhere.  All the researching, writing, editing, and decision making would be done by and for us - the people.  With a large focus on engaging the general public both in the process of learning and engaging with their voices while coming to outcomes, options, and policy suggestions.  We believe that this will put individuals and groups that have traditionally been on the periphery, or marginalized throughout the whole process of intellectual creation, at the forefront of understanding and recreating their own social, political, and economic outcomes.  

The research focus itself would be within Occupy's principles and interests of political, economic, and social justice.  The research would however not inherently be done on the Occupy movement itself, but focused on doing research that viewed the world through the prism of an occupied lens and used this as its analytical and thematic point of departure. The institute would be designed to become the nexus for the ideas, research, and actions surrounding and produced by the Occupy movement.

What's next??

So as you will see in the previous post (schools), I have no immediate plans for the future.  A dream of mine may finally need to come to a close... meaning it's probably time to reassess life, put all options back on the table.  I can only imagine how many people are doing this this time of year.  Students for sure, but probably countless others in general.  The weather is starting to turn nice, people want to get out and do things, be with people they enjoy.  Instead, a lot of us our sitting around wondering what our lives are about and how to afford to leave the house - if we have one.  Unemployment is still drastically high, wages still drastically low, health care, housing, whatever.  This is a time when many people are reassessing life, and wishing they had more options.

So for me, what this means is that for years I have been working towards an academic styled career with lots to show for it but little pragmatic return.  It's been said to me about this round of applications that if I didn't get in to schools that maybe it was time to recognize that while I could keep doing things in the present to better my applications that my past couldn't change.  I will always by the dyslexic guy that went to college to play football, and ran across some interesting academic stuff along the way.  Maybe it is that part that will just never get me far in academia.  What choice do I have?

So as it is, what do I do from here?  I was let go from my political job because I was not a good cold calling fundraiser.  I have picked up work in a hiking store doing retail sales and as a guide since, but this is supplemental income at best.  Therefore, I am back to the same old dilemmas.  I have Occupy, it's in my core, and there are a lot of things I'd like to do within it - countless really.  But Occupy doesn't provide an income.  And as we all know, the world we live in requires an income.  The trick for me has always been about how to find a way to express my passions and principles through work.

Right now a quick list of possibilities includes (in no specific order):

• Working on a sustainability project for Occupy that would involve revenue generation through cooperative guild-like structures to accommodate housing, intellectual, and production needs for the movement.  This is much more complex and should be elaborated elsewhere.  Pluses: Occupy for the future! Minuses: no money
• Occupying universities: A plan was floated to me well before I was rejected from schools that, whether I get in or not, we should organize a protest group to go to school anyway.  Bring together people at every level that can't afford school or can't get access to school and go anyway.  for me this would mean starting a PhD program without admission or consent.  I will go to a meeting tonight for the Occupy friendly Free University.  Also worth looking at this school set up in the UK.  Pluses: Occupy and education.  Minuses: no money.
• Other Occupy projects:
• 99 Pickets - help coordinate labor issue pickets and solidarity.
• Police pickets - include Occupy somehow in the Police union's contract negotiations.  "While we don't support that you beat and repress us, we do support you as exploited workers."
• Think Tank
• Outreach and door to door and flyering work.
• Occupy documentary/research trip: I was approached a few weeks ago by a documentary film maker with Occupy to take a few months to travel around the country and go to any number of Occupies to spread the think tank and help him with the documentary.  This opens doors in a lot of directions.  I would structure it as a research study and could even work with professors on the study.  I would be learning and connecting with Occupy on a much broader level and the research would have specific Occupy goals including bringing more ideas through the think tank and its web page.  Blogging and writing the whole way.  Pluses: Occupy, research, writing.  Minuses: Money, would be really tough to fundraise.
• I can continue working on my writing, try to publish things and even work on finishing one of my book projects.  Pluses: writing.  Minuses: low probability of or no money
• There is of course random work out there as well.  Retail work, athletic stores, service industry, etc.  (I haven't been able to do lacrosse officiating because of some vague issue with my fingerprint process, hmmm...).  Pluses: Money. Minuses: time lost in unproductive work.
• I could finish my application for the Open Society Institute for a large funding stream for a year.  Pluses: lots of money, my research and writing.  Minuses: highly competitive (unlikely to get), takes months to hear back.
• Think Tank funding:  I could look into ways to find funding sources and/or grants for the think tank.  Pluses: Occupy, research.  Minuses: unlikely
• Could actually work in conjunction with documentary trip.
• I can push wholeheartedly back into the development industry.  New York City is a great place to be for organizations and companies working on development issues.  Pluses: Money, working on issues I believe in and am experienced in. Minuses: me and everyone else... really tough to get this type of job.
• Non-profit work.  Race relations, economic and social justice, democracy, individuals, society, etc.  I would love to get into domestic work along the lines of Occupy related issues, but I have little of the "concrete" experience employers seem to want.  Pluses: issues and Occupy.  Minuses: tough to get. 
• Africa Project: I will be giving an update on this work asap, but the work I did in Africa is starting to bear fruit.  I could push further into this.  Pluses: heart, previous effort, finishing it, helping people, gaining experience.  Minuses: Money, really tough to coordinate all logistically and do other things.   
• Work towards schools again:  I could continue to look at schools or work towards it.  I don't think I would spend much time looking in US though.  I know I'd want to go to Rutgers if here, and if elsewhere probably just go abroad so I was done in 3-4 years.  Pluses: see schools post.  Minuses: see schools post, lol.  But realistically... what is it they say about insanity?  Doing the same thing an expecting different results?

So that is probably not an exhaustive list as there is always running off to China and joining a Daoist monastery or marketing toothpaste in Eastern Europe.  lol.  No matter what though, I will be involved with Occupy and think that I need to be based out of NY for that.  Again though, the key is that I have to live.  All the Occupy related stuff requires longer periods of struggle and huge uncertainties with money.  All of which I am not against, but I know these options will be very tough and cause ancillary issues in my life.

The key to it all is that things need to be broken down into long and short term issues, and then I need to work meticulously towards the things I may want to attain.  Starting down as many pathways as I can until certain one's become more clear.  Short term I have to make some money.  I have the hiking store, but it is not enough to live on.  So I will have to find something else quickly.  That kind of goes without choice - random work!  Yes, it would be great if that random work was something I loved doing like researching and/or writing just to make a couple hundred dollars hear or there, but most likely it will be retail.

From there it is about the future...  What do I want to be down the road?  Do I want to go back into development work?  Non-profit?  What about trying to open doors with the Occumentary?  Basically, if there is one thing that the world has shown right now, is that good opportunities are tough to come by for anyone.  I spent years looking for work in my field, hundreds of applications.  What is to say today will not be the same as yesterday?  Frankly, there just aren't a lot of jobs out there that will allow me to pay student loans, housing, food, life, etc, no matter what my ideals are.  This is our world, and I am caught up in it completely.  Questioning it all, wondering how I got here, even while knowing full well that the past doesn't matter at all right now only how the hell the future is going to pan out, and/or if I have any control over it what-so-ever.  Kind of depressing actually.  Takes me back to a time and some writing I did a while back.  To have worked this hard in life to try to understand things, to try to gain experience, to try to stand up for people and good things, yet still to be faced with nothing but a dark void in front of you.  Tough.  



  

Schools

Originally written 4/2, rewritten/updated 5/6

So there I sat, it was April 15th, a day with little significance to most everyone outside of PhD application circles.  I of course was in that circle and desperately waiting for word on what my future would entail.  I had been waiting for months and the past couple weeks had become agonizing.  I had been rejected from all of the viable options with funding except one.  Rutgers.  I was on the wait list there.  200 plus applicants and there was only two spots for socio-cultural anthropologists.  I didn't know where I was on the waiting list, but knew it was a small list and only two offers had gone out.

I had been working towards this for almost a decade.  Now it was down to final week of waiting.  It was agonizing, but not as agonizing as getting final notice that I was not accepted anywhere.  So please bare with me in this novelesque post as this is going to be a hard one for me to write.

I have put a lot of effort into "school" over the last ten years.  In 2002 when I went back to the US from Prague I went with the idea of going to business school for sports management.  I wanted to capitalize on the work I'd done with American Football in Europe.  I very quickly decided though that while I loved the work with football, developing the game, and working with kids in such a multicultural setting, it wasn't what I really wanted out of life.  I had for a long time been intrigued by the Peace Corps and instead chose to work towards that.  I went through the application process and was nominated to go to Central Asia, but with about a month to go I backed out for what I thought at the time could have been the love of my life.  I had planned to go back to school after the PC and was eyeing up international studies programs, sociology and anything really focusing on systematized inequality.  So I decided to move my studies up while giving that relationship a chance (two plus years in the hills of Central Asia doesn't make for much hope in a relationship!). 

But first things first, I have gone through an incredible evolution intellectually and personally here.  I started at West Virginia wanting to be an exercise physiologist and athletic trainer, I ended up studying sociology - reading people like Karl Marx and Max Weber, working on race relations and economic and social justice issues.  I was never presented with anything like that in high school and became incredibly intrigued by critical theory - especially critiques of Capitalism.  After graduation and a bit of time in corporate America I moved to Prague.  The two years I spent in there from 2000-02 really opened up the former socialist areas of the world to me and the in-depth intrigues of different ways of life.  I also had a keen interest in History and specifically Genghis Khan so I was brought closer to Central Asia and the parts of its socialist past and present.  I decided I wanted to study socialist transition, both to and from, as well as all in between (it still makes me nostalgic and curious even in this moment as I'm writing).  I applied to the University of Manchester in England for an Masters program in Economic and Social History.  I was going to study Central Asia the socio-economic transitions there as i found the racial and ethnic composition fascinating.  All the while I just wanted to learn different ways of systematized life throughout history.  How is it that societies structure themselves and people emerge as cultural entities.  With all of this understanding perhaps we could work towards new alternatives.

The British education system was a culture shock to me.  It was more of a self study environment than I was used to.  At the time I complained: "I went to school to be taught, not to be in a self study program!!"  But as it was, it was a great thing for me, and one I cherish now.  Of course though, my research changed tremendously.  Not on purpose mind you, but because the person I applied to work with on Central Asia went on sabbatical.  So as I had lived in Prague and spoke some Czech, I became an expert on the post conflict reconstruction of Eastern Europe and Czechoslovakia after World War II and debates on multilateral versus unilateral aid/development.  I focused on UNRRA and the united nation's involvement in reconstruction at that time.  It played heavily into cold war politics, sovereignty, and power politics.  It was right around the time the shooting in Iraq was slowing down and the world was starting to argue over the who would be involved in the reconstruction.  I loved the work.  I loved the learning, the analysis, the writing.  I spent over 6 weeks in the UN's archives in New York City and met some amazing people.  I then did my writing up in Boston while selling running shoes!  It left me yearning for more.

I had applied straight to the PhD program at Manchester and been accepted, but without funding.  The Master's degree had cost me a lot of money living in England for that year, and three to four more would have easily required at least a hundred and fifty thousand dollars in student loans at that time.

Instead, I decided to go to China and learn what life was like there.  you'll see this pattern throughout this post.  constantly reaching for something, getting teased by it, and then finding another outlet for my curiosities - as always, interested in how different people and places function.  I have always had a very keen interest in many things Chinese so going there tied a lot of things together for me.  But the friend I went to China with decided not to go through on his plans to start a school there (I was going to help him set it up).  I quickly found myself back in Prague looking to apply properly for PhD's throughout Europe.  However, I found a job through a friend doing research, writing, and development work for an organization working in Iraq and Afghanistan on reconstruction issues.  I figured, hey, this is what I'd be going to school for and would be doing after!  So why not now!?

I'll leave that experience for another story (I actually started writing a book about it as it was so complex and mortifying!).  But anyway, two years later I was desperate to get back to academia and away from what I considered war profiteers.  I had spent a lot of time looking at European schools and questioned how to fund it, so I turned my attention to US schools not realizing I had missed the deadlines.  Rather than keep treading water, I applied to Central European University for another MA (this time in Sociology and Anthropology) while I waited to apply again the next year.  I was still studying reconstruction and development.  I'd started expanding into Africa from my Eastern European and Central Asian roots.  I loved what I was learning in Budapest, but didn't mesh well with the system and faculty there.  I "was a bit more of a revolutionary than an academic" I was told at one point by a professor.  He also said I was one of the most original students he'd ever had (and was very encouraging), but continued to say that the faculty was somewhat threatened by both that and my bold approach.

I suppose this is as good a place as any to say that I'm dyslexic.  I don't read as quickly as most apparently, spell like a drunk foreigner, and process information "differently".  All this translated at the time into a bit of a rebellious approach and a need for deadline extensions.  The issue at the time though was that while I went into Manchester somewhat subconsciously "timid" given my "disability", I went into CEU empowered by actually having a diagnosis of dyslexia and ways to deal with it.  I used to think everyone else was smart and I just had work hard and try to get there.  Now, I had been told that my ideas were not wrong, just that I saw things differently and that I should stand up for them and be firm in my analysis.  This however backfired a bit as I took it tool literally.  Anyway, I worked myself into the ground in many ways.  I have issues with allergies and something called Fybromialgia and it caught up to me.  I got sick and had to get extensions on my work.  This of course lead me back to NY as my work/student visa's for Europe all ran out.  While I was able to get some coursework done back in the US, eventually the realities of life got in the way and I had to focus on living, housing, food, etc. I never finished the degree.

This was really disappointing as I really liked the direction my work was going in.  I had started wholly interested in sociology but started to really get much more indepthly into Anthropology.  I got closer to the type of globally focused work on individuals and their agency within systems of economic, social, and political power.  Economic development, social transition, etc.  It was very interesting stuff.  I had started working on Sierra Leone and the concept of the individual.  How "liberalism" with its emphasis on individual and personal rights, private property, human rights, free markets and such, create and individualized society based on competition and conflict.  My work was on Liberal peace (liberal democracy), which is basically the theory that two countries that are both democracies would not go to war with each other because their two populaces would theoretically never actively choose to go to war with each other - that liberalism created less war and conflict.  My work was specifically showing the opposite of this that individuals acting solely out of self interest end u being inherently competitive, which of course more readily leads to conflict and perhaps even war.  

During that year in Budapest I had applied to seven schools in the US for Doctoral studies.  I had done extensive analysis of PhD programs in sociology that included an exhaustive excel spread sheet with personalized rankings and measures for each school based on school and departmental rankings, courses, faculty, ideology, collaboration, etc.  I very hastily applied as well to a few anthropology programs.  Sadly though, I did not get in anywhere.

This of course made returning to the US bittersweet in so many ways.  I had started writing a book on "the death of an idealist" a few years back and it all seemed so close at that time.  It was about how difficult it was for a person of principle of incredible ethical standards and fortitude to find a place in our world.  No matter what you were doing it seemed that working towards the common good was such a foreign concept.  I so desperately wanted to be doing this type of work.   

So as it was, while my academic interests were very important to me, I now had to sort out a life without it for a foreseeable future.  I applied everywhere with no luck, but managed to get random jobs and tried to start random businesses/non-profits.  One kept my intellectual interests alive.  It was a website that would be the precursor to the Occupy Think Tank of today.  Alternativeideas.org, an online platform where people could put ideas and where issues and the ideas related to them could be worked thorough in workshops aimed at creating new policy options.  The principle was that technocrats, academics, and political types held a monopoly on the information used to generate policy, and that a grassroots groundswell of ideas could be used to supplement this decision making process.  I didn't get far with it though as I didn't get funding to build a proper website.

I pressed on with looking for work in my field, but when I didn't find much of anything in my areas of interest, I threw everything into the trip to Africa that is discussed within this blog.  I had been looking to study and/or get development jobs in Africa, but had never been.  So I just went.  I planned, fundraised, and undertook an awareness raising and educational trip to Sierra Leone.  It was transformative for me.  But one thing that was not lost on me was that I wanted to be sure that there was an intellectual research and writing aspect surrounding any work I did in development. 

I came back determined to get back into academia - as always it now seems.  But I knew that finding the right school and supervisors was paramount given my experience.  I had to find the right person to work with.  I of course used the same excel statistical methodology as before.  I started with 176 schools in the US and Canada.  I narrowed that down to 74 with similar interests, and then to 12 definites and another 8 maybes.  This was in August.  I started sending out emails and getting books for all the professors I as interested in.  I was working with disabled people at this time, but spending all my spare time reading and thinking about projects, about Africa, about mineral rights in Sierra Leone, about liberalism, whatever....

Then of course, Occupy happened.  My whole world changed.  The well mapped out strategy for the next year: school apps through January, Africa work in the spring, and then finishing writing a book in the summer before school all went to pot.  I was certain that this time around I was ready.  I had done a lot of personal work on my self, gotten much further into meditation and chi gung, and had really come to peace within myself and with what I wanted to do.  I felt really ready to settle in and get a PhD done.  I thought as it went on, that occupy was going to help the application process.  I was making a difference, I had started this great working group that had attracted anthropologist after anthropologist, while meeting all sorts of occupy and academic types.  I was getting really positive feedback.  I was doing everything I wanted to do!  But it seems that it wasn't what the programs wanted to see.  I put together my applications quickly in December with some fabulous help, but alas, I was still rejected from everywhere.  Actually that is not entirely true.  I was accepted to the MA program at the New School.  I was offered a 25% scholarship towards tuition!  Which meant I still had to pay $24,000 on tuition AND whatever living in NYC cost.  Which is not even remotely worth it having talked to a number of students there.  I already have a masters and their program doesn't guarantee a place in the PhD program.  I could get a PhD in England in 3-4 years and pay less.

But... I did get really close this time.  In January I went to an open house at Rutgers and "fell for it".  They have a great program in "engaged" anthropology that was a lot like the work I'd been doing in Africa and Occupy.  Using anthropology not just as a learning tool, but to instigate change as well.  The faculty was great, I even got to guest speak in a class on Occupy that day.  But close isn't good enough.  Rutgers didn't have to go to their waiting list.  I had to wait till that last day to find out, April 15th.  I found out that Sunday at 7:30 in the evening.   I wasn't consciously as crushed as I thought I would be.  I'd been prepared emotionally.  But physically I felt my body react.  I was hurt.

Overall it was a rough application process.  My one recommender from Budapest (who thought I was so original and a revolutionary) only sent the recommendation to one school - even though he assured me he'd done it for all.  He then disappeared.  Prick.  I know it affected my chances.  Not only was it my most recent work and the most relevant, but I didn't finish the program.  There was a lot to say.  A lot of questions to answer.  If he didn't believe in me enough he could have at least had the balls to tell me he wasn't going to do it so I could ask someone else.  Don Kalb....  WTF!!!  I know at one school the incomplete application excluded me from funding and th regular admissions process.

But hey, not that the blame should be put anywhere but on me.  I went to West Virginia University to play football, I got a 3.1 GPA there, I have crappy GRE scores and refuse to take them again on principle, it is my responsibility to pick good recommenders.  Still....  !@$%#%.  It sucks.  I understand that I am a different type of candidate.  I understand that I don't have all the good schools, all the good names, all the great grades and such behind me.  But I have experiences, I have an analytical lens, and apparently an incredibly unique view of things and way of doing things.  These are apparently things that I value but that programs do not.  I didn't get great grades in High School, I didn't blow college out of the water, and I haven't followed the typical career ladder for an academic.  BUT THAT IS WHY ACADEMIA SHOULD BE INTERESTED!!  I am different, and that is what academia needs!!  Or at least that's what I think.  It is however, just another institution of the capitalist vanguard. 

So as it is, this has been a very disappointing stretch.  I have put so much into academia and towards getting into a PhD program as my preferred method for both understanding and bringing about change.  Perhaps I'll never be able to separate myself from the dyslexic football player that has bounced around the world learning and doing various things in various atypical ways though.  But should I?  I study the individual and competition because I know what it is like to be called "the most competitive person I've every coached", I study the economics of post-conflict areas because I have seen first hand the horrors of working in that industry and walked through one, I know how to rebuild after a disaster in a foreign country because I have physically knocked down and rebuilt walls in Eastern Europe, and I apparently come to it all through different ways of thought because my brain is somehow constructed differently.  Yeah, I can read, but I've never learned nearly as much from reading as I have from living.      

The issue now though is what does this mean for me today.  It would seem that for now, I guess it means that the dream of spending my days learning and getting paid to do it aren't happening.  Yes, it is disappointing.  But it was the Buddha that said that life itself was about suffering.  Perhaps he was on to something?  Perhaps... but I think at this point it really could be about opportunity.  Just as in the other times I've applied and not gotten in or funding, I now have every door open to me.  I am in a very different position in life.  I am in NYC surrounded by and enmeshed within some solid networks.  I have gotten some great advice and had some wonderful things pop up this week that have allowed me to think of things in very different lights as well.  Perhaps it is time to focus on carving out my own niche, reinventing myself, and following my heart.  It is no coincidence that every stop along my academic career both others and myself have felt I am atypical and march to a different beat.  While I thought there should be a place for that in Academia, it may not be so.  As such, while what beat I will be marching to is yet to be found, I know where my passions lay, and I am excited at the opportunity to follow them (even if it means more struggle).  Of course, I will always want to be doing intellectual/academic type work - engaging in that type of thought process - but perhaps that isn't the right road for me.  I have to find a new path, one that isn't marked yet.  A trail isn't yet a trail if it goes off trail....

What am I up to...

So I am spending my days working with people with "disabilities".  Trying to find them employment in a world and system that has ostracized them and that really has created no place for them.  It is truly sad to see.  People that just want to be accepted, loved.  That just want to feel "normal", to feel like they fit in and have a place.  Yet here they are in a society designed to work entirely against the assets they've brought to their table.  They are a true minority in the greatest sense of the word and world.  African Americans may be discriminated against where they go, women in the workplace, homosexuals in marriage, but imagine if you were discriminated against within the very socio-biological ways of society?  The way you talked, walked, looked.  The way you picked things up, the accessibility of places, people, how you physically did things.  Imagine if you couldn't hear your mothers voice, couldn't see the bus approaching to pick you up, couldn't walk in to a job interview and truly be heard, couldn't comfortably perform simple professional norms like shaking someone's hand? 

Society is set up for people that physically and mentally work in a certain way.  If you don't function in that way, you will never truly find a place.  I recognize it more and more within myself every day, and I'm simply dyslexic.  My brain processes things differently.  The conclusions I draw seem different, I don't organize information in the same way, and I see the outcomes daily as I become more aware of it.  But imagine if I had a completely different genetic makeup?  Imagine if my brain didn't just process or sort information differently, but actually worked entirely differently?  And that way of working was deemed by standard measures - such as IQ tests and such - to actually not be working?  It is a true travesty of our society that people that function differently on so may levels have no place in society, that they are not encouraged to be a part of global or national life as they are.  They are encouraged to conform, to try to become like "us".  Medicated, trained, whatever.  Where is their own personal voice?  Muted.  People that think differently are really the only people with the true capacity to think "outside the box", to work from an original canvas as they are not hindered by the mainstream.  They are different, and I truly wonder why we try to make them the same.  We need to hear them, listen to the ideas, try to hear the variance, the possible new directions.  What better way to change our society to be more inclusive than through dialog with and via the eyes of those that are actually ostracized? 

So this is what I do, I try to jam round pegs into square holes.  In my spare time I am still working on ideas with Africa.  I am saving some money for another trip and project supplies.  Things have been downsized a bit.  I am at this point simply trying to find a small fairly straight-forward and simple project that can be delivered in the next year during my spare time.  I am of course also still trying to find people to work with that will keep me going and help with the process.  No small issue...

Right now I am thinking that the internet incubator/cafe will be the easiest thing to deliver upon.  An office space for non-profits that would be funded by an internet cafe.  The proceeds cover the rent and computer upkeep while providing organizations with the space and infrastructure to do their work.  It wouldn't cost more than $10,000 to get everything set up and running and would require little oversight.

I've got some stuff I may do to help bring out the minority vote in Dutchess county where I am living right now as well.  Kind of a complicated road, but one that could be quite fulfilling.  I'm also looking into PhD programs again.  Doing a much more thorough analysis of the anthropology programs this time.  Narrowing down the ones that would be just right for my interests and theoretical vantage points.  This is the type of arena I belong in, but it is funny that the reason I am not there is because I am a round peg, I think very differently, and it caused me issues both in getting accepted and during my time in academia.

We'll see though, there is a lot of ways to get to the places I want to be.  It will take some time and a little bit of doing.  But if I can get something done in Africa, and survive my current job, it could all open a wealth of doors for the future.  Time is always an asset, and always a challenge....